by Lana Sky
The house looks different from down here. The lower balcony juts over a wall of rock, and from this angle, it’s easy to see the decay lurking underneath: years of grime, and algae, and whatever else might grow on a beachside dwelling.
But then, seemingly in another universe down below, is a breathtaking scene of pure white sand, where the waves bleed into tide pools teeming with life. It’s here, close to the cliff face, that Thorny unfurls my towel and sets it down.
“I haven’t been down here in…” He trails off, observing the view he’s so used to scowling at.
“It’s nice.” My awed sigh isn’t faked. This place is beautiful.
I sink down, curling my toes in the sand, and watch the sun sparkle off the waves. After what feels like an eternity, Thorny finally sits down beside me.
Together, we stare out, saying nothing. But, in the same moment, we’re saying everything. His hand is braced over the sand, close enough to touch if I want to. So I do, just to make him react. He draws it closer to his side, sitting more stiffly. Then he sighs. Sand and heavy fingertips dip into my hair a second later, coaxing me to lie on my side like a kitten at his mercy.
The best writing is drawn from inspiration, he said once. Inspiration found in the moments that contain too much to explain in one go. You have to choose the right words to convey them. Like intoxicating to describe a particular smell: sea salt with a hint of wine. Or enigmatic to describe a certain look cast your way by someone who thinks you aren’t watching them. Fleeting to describe how it feels to know that this moment can never last. And desperate. That impulse urging you to extend the silence any way you can. It expresses itself in a racing, greedy heartbeat that gobbles at the blood meant for your brain, hoarding it.
I close my eyes as his fingers pick through my hair, and I dig my feet into the sand, anchoring myself to the warmth and the peaceful quiet. The more he strokes, the harder I dig and dig until my toes strike something hot and I bolt upright.
“What’s wrong?” Thorny untangles his hand from my hair, his tone wary. “Are you okay?”
I swipe my hand along the sand near my feet, dislodging something small and shiny. Recognition makes my eyes go wide, and I laugh when I hold it up: a silver bracelet with a tiny seashell charm.
“Elaine does have taste,” I admit. To survive so long without rusting, the bracelet has to be of damn good quality.
Thorny grabs it from me, observing it in the waning sunlight. “Taste, you say, but Elaine didn’t buy this for you.” He chuckles at the absurdity of the idea. “I did.”
My mouth drops open—I don’t miss the irony. Of all things, he picked a seashell. A token of the ocean I compared him to. Heart in my throat, I watch him twist the metal between his fingers, partly convinced he’ll throw it into the ocean like his secret book.
“Here.” He grabs my wrist, and I stare in shock as he clasps the bracelet around it. “Try not to lose it over any more cliffs.”
“Deal.” I draw my arm close to my chest, admiring how the charm sparkles in the sun.
“And there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.” His real reason for coming out here, I suspect. “There’s a program for creative writing at a college I went to upstate. Every year, they select a small group of new freshmen to qualify, but there’s an audition process. It starts next week. Would you be interested?”
My mouth opens wordlessly. A part of me wants to lie. Nonchalantly quip No, thanks. I’ll pass. But, in reality, I’m sweating bullets at the fucking idea of letting him know just how much I do want it. It’s terrifying what the prospect of him caring about my education means to me. Everything.
“Can I ask you something first?”
He frowns but doesn’t outright refuse.
So I take a risk and ask, “Why did you stop writing?”
His shocked grimace proves it wasn’t by choice. Ten years without a novel. Ten years without putting his words down for others to understand.
No wonder he’s been drinking so much.
“I—” He breaks off, eyeing the indigo sky. Suddenly, he leans back, lying beside me, flat on his back. His hands fan out, brushing my shoulder. By accident? Even as I shiver and let myself inch a hair’s width closer, I can’t tell. “Maybe I haven’t been brave enough.”
“Brave enough to publish?” I know that’s not it before he shakes his head.
“To confront myself.”
I inhale at the rawness in his voice; it’s a rare glimpse of him without the confident mask I’m so used to him wearing. I wish it diminished him any. If anything, I feel like I did while reading his stolen novel: inside his head, nestled among his deepest thoughts, yet still so distant.
“Pathetic, huh?” he wonders.
“No.” I shake my head, my words whispered. “Not at all.”
“It’s just… I don’t think I’ll like what I’ll see.”
But he’s wrong. I have to bite my lip just to keep from saying as much out loud. The ocean is the most beautiful when it’s riled by a tempest, churning in the midst of a storm. It’s dangerous enough to swallow everything in its path.
And I think there’s a mercy in that.
Our routine becomes so comfortable that it’s almost normal, that icky word. During the week, I suffer through Jane’s lessons while Thorny commutes from work to home and back. At night, we eat dinner in the dining room, talking about nothing in particular.
Later, we sit on the balcony and tell stories. His revolve around him: why he writes about murder so much, for instance.
“The thrill,” he says. “A death can symbolize way more than just a death. It’s an ending. A beginning. It’s the culmination of secrets and lies. It’s terrifying. It’s all that makes us human bundled into one terrible event.”
“Oh,” I say, breathing the word into the wind. So poetic he is—even dying is more than the obvious: decaying in a dank, dirty hole in the ground. To change the subject, I do what I do best. Improvise impulsively without a thought as to the consequences. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”
He shrugs, thinking it over in that brooding, thoughtful way only he can. Finally, he sighs. “I’ve thought about divorcing Elaine once,” he admits as my mouth falls open.
Coming from goody-two-shoes Thorny, the confession is the equivalent of a monk admitting he was secretly a prostitute. Deep down, a part of me squirms at the thrill of it, knowing something so deep. So raw.
But then I frown at the implications of what it means.
“Why didn’t you?”
He looks at me sharply. The waning daylight enhances the panes of his face making him look older, but still handsome at the same damn time. “I bought a cabin down south,” he admits, ignoring my question entirely. Kicking out his legs, he leans back into the lounge chair, observing the sky darken and morph in color. “I never told her about it, and I used to dream of just escaping down there with nothing but a fucking notebook and a pen.”
He sounds so pensive, and I know better than to talk. This is his moment. His dream. Maybe it helps him to hear it spoken out loud, a confession good old Thorny rarely lets himself admit: I wanted to leave.
“I kept a spare set of keys in a safety deposit box,” he adds. “It’s been ten fucking years… Maybe I should finally sell it?”
He isn’t looking but I shake my head anyway.
“Tell me something,” he demands, turning the tables like always. “Something you’ve never told anyone else.”
I tell him about all my lies. With flair and pizzazz so that he snorts and laughs that rare, real laugh of his. I tell him about why I hated living with Caroline, Lily, and Marcia—because they weren’t him. I tell him all about my many escapades.
It doesn’t matter if he believes me or not. I think a part of him never will, not fully. All that does matter is that he listens. To every word, as the night wears on and the days tick by.
We’re on the beach when I finally gather up the nerve to ask about that one pesky
topic I haven’t been brave enough to broach.
“Tell me about the day my dad died.” I’m arms-deep in sand and seawater, making a sandcastle—attempting to, anyway.
Deep in thought already, he is sitting farther up on the bank, scribbling into a journal. “Maryanne…” His pen stills as he looks up, meeting my gaze.
I brace for his denial. Not right now.
“Please.”
His teeth grate out a terse reply. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“R-really? I mean…” I swallow hard, nodding. “Yes.”
“He called me that day,” he says finally, setting his journal aside. “I knew he was struggling after your mother left, and I don’t know why, but he called me… He loved you, you know. You need to know that. He loved you, but he had his demons, Maryanne. And I was too late. Believe me when I say that I’d give anything to have gotten there sooner.”
“But you didn’t,” I croak, crafting sand turrets with trembling fingers. Such a shitty little castle. I smash it and start over from scratch. “So what happened next?”
“I found you,” he says, his tone low. “You were so strong. Too strong. You just stood there—hell, you weren’t even crying. And I knew that nothing I said could ever erase what you saw.”
“My grandmother wanted you to take custody of me then,” I point out. Grandmama was known for her brutal honesty. Elaine couldn’t raise a kitten, she said of her own daughter once. With Charles gone, Maryanne needs guidance, James. She needs you. “But you said no.”
“I couldn’t,” he says, shaking his head. “And not just because of Elaine, either. I…I didn’t know how to be what you needed. You looked at me like I was some kind of god. Like I had all the answers, but I didn’t. I don’t. The sooner you realized that, the better. I thought I was helping if I kept my distance.”
“But it didn’t,” I say, taking over the storytelling duties. “It made it worse. It made me feel—” I bite the words back. My sandcastle looms like a mocking, lopsided version of Thornfield—the only piece of it I’ll ever truly own.
“Don’t,” he scolds sharply. “Tell me. Say what you need to say.”
“You made me feel…” Everything spills out in a rush. “Like I was a broken, dirty thing no one could ever love. You threw me away. But I needed you—”
“But that’s not true.” His hand dips into my view, smoothing out the lines of my sand foundation as I blink frantically. “You never needed me. You still don’t.”
“Oh yeah?” I scoff.
“Yeah.” His thumb swipes my chin, gritty with sand and damp with seawater, shutting me up. “And when you learn to face yourself, I know you’ll be ten times more successful than I could ever be.”
“But what if you’re wrong?”
Because I do need him. I do. The words are on my tongue, but storytelling is about honesty. Knowing when to say the truth and when to lie. Right now, he wants to believe the lie. He has to.
“I made up my mind about college,” I say instead.
He draws his hand away and leans back to observe me from a newer angle. “Oh? What’s the verdict?”
“I…” My voice trails off as someone appears on the horizon, treading through the sand dunes, her blond hair tossed by the wind.
She spots us, shielding her eyes with the flat of her hand.
“Hey.” Thorny trails his fingers across my cheek. “What is it?”
“Elaine’s home,” I hear myself whisper.
Home, looking tan and even more beautiful than before. She’s swapped the flowing dresses for a pair of cream-colored slacks and a beige shirt with ruffled sleeves. They flutter in the wind as she stops short a few paces away, just staring.
Thorny doesn’t move for so long that sweat paints my skin as the sun beats down, unbearably hot. Finally, he stands and faces Elaine. They watch each other warily, like wild creatures meeting again for the first time.
He takes his time approaching her, and she turns and heads to the house before he can catch up.
I watch them go, knowing that this is what he really means when he says to confront yourself. Walk toward that thing you’ve been avoiding, shoulders back, eyes forward. Allow it to lead you somewhere you might not want to go.
Never look back at what you leave behind.
It’s the only way to feel the pain in all of its sticky, stinging glory. Like smashing grapes for writer’s wine.
Elaine came home with her suitcase and nothing else. No divorce papers. No Jeremy Weston. It’s like she never left for several months. In theory.
The reality is a stark, ugly picture. She’s a crisp, neat puzzle piece trying to rejoin a framework that was damaged and warped a little while she was gone. Too clean to fit into the ugly gap left behind, she just sits awkwardly on top of the other ruined pieces.
She and Thorny talk for hours and hours, sitting stiffly on the balcony, their backs to the house. I watch them from their bedroom and follow their conversation without hearing a word.
She’s sorry.
He’s stressed.
She wants to work on their problems.
He’s too tired.
She sighs at the horizon.
He drinks wine.
They play that game for hours, never really saying anything at all.
When he finally leaves, Elaine starts to cry, staring out at the ocean, while I retreat to my room like a good niece. Climbing onto my bed, I grab my notebook and scribble the million little snipes I’m used to saying out loud.
She’s pathetic.
He’s pathetic.
They’re pathetic.
I’m jealous.
Oops. I start to cross that final line out only to stop halfway. Lous remains, the bitter half of a terrible word.
“You were telling me what your answer was.”
I look up and find Thorny in my doorway, standing there awkwardly out of place. My hand lands over the page I’m on, obscuring the words.
He frowns but doesn’t come closer. “So what is it? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” I whisper, closing my journal and setting it aside.
It’s almost ironic that the first day of the college admission test is tomorrow. Good. I don’t have to sit there awkwardly as they avoid each other in the same room. I don’t have to witness the aftermath.
I don’t have to pretend like none of this matters.
“Fine,” Thorny says, turning away. “I’ll take you in the morning.” He heads toward the master bedroom—avoiding Elaine, I realize. She doesn’t come up here, even as the hours tick toward midnight.
They’re avoiding another fight, I guess.
And if I wanted…
I could make it one worth having. All I’d have to do is leave my little red journal out in the open for anyone to find. Like a morally compromised wife, perhaps? It’d be so fucking easy. So easy.
It’s what I wanted when I wrote it in the first place. Chaos. I tell myself that even as I shove the journal underneath my mattress and out of sight.
Words have the power to destroy—Thorny taught me that. So does silence, when nothing is deemed important enough to say and the words shrivel up inside you with no one around to hear them. You just burn.
But at least you feel something.
The next morning, I clamber into the convertible with Thorny as my surly driver. Four hours in theory should crawl by, but they don’t. We reach the school with time to spare and no choice but to fill the empty quiet with something.
“You went to college here?” I ask as though I didn’t already know that tidbit of info. Old Thorny probably fit right in among the ivy-covered stone buildings imbued with more age than even the campus at Walden. It’s the kind of place I’d never imagine attending.
I’m the ditzy blond, always destined to be the party girl at some low-rent institution. Not here. My nostrils flare as if stealing away the scent of the crisp air, knowing I’ll most likely never smell it again.
“There was my old dor
m,” Thorny points out, indicating a building across a sparse park. It’s the first sentence he’s spoken all morning, but his voice sounds level. Almost normal. “And over there”—he nods to a bench beside an old oak—“I used to write almost every day.”
“About what?” I’m genuinely curious.
He shrugs. “About everything.”
“Oh?” Everything from beautiful blonds to dark musings, I suspect. Back when he was brave enough to confront himself.
What might that James look like? For some reason, I can’t imagine anyone more appealing than the roughened shell he is now. Weathered and beaten, just like Thornfield.
The rotten bits are part of their allure.
“Come on.” He pushes the car door open and gestures for me to do the same. “I’ll give you a tour.”
As promised, he takes me through the heart of the campus, and it isn’t long before he’s spotted by someone who begs him to sign a coffee cup. Of course he’s a celebrity here. The amazing James Thorne, spinner of words and twisted tales.
I sneak glances at him from the corner of my eye, watching how he reacts to the various accolades: barely at all. So stern. So surly. The attention doesn’t even make him smile. If anything, his perpetual scowl deepens.
“What?” I ask, waggling my eyebrows as the last admirer skips away. “You don’t like being recognized?”
“No.” He exhales, turning his gaze up to the sky. A muscle in his throat jumps and I stare, wondering what confession he just swallowed down. “Not particularly.”
“But it’s nice, right? I mean, seeing how your writing affects other people. It means something?”
“When you put it that way…” He shrugs. “I guess so. Especially if that person is talented enough to write something ten times better than I ever could.”
He looks me dead in the eye and my heart flutters helplessly as I fight to suck in air.
“I don’t know. That’s a bit much to live up to. You are the amazing James Thorne—”
“Look at me.” He stops short and grabs my arm to spin me to face him. One of his hands flinches toward me only to curl into a fist and return to his side. “You’ve been quiet,” he tells me. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous.”